Sianim 01 - Masques

involuntarily. “You saw that one, huh? How should I know how much salt to put in? I’ve never cooked anything in my life—that was edible, at any rate.”
    “I wish I could help you more; but even if they aren’t terrified of me, I’m not someone they can trust. You have my sympathy—for what it’s worth.”
    “Thanks, anyway.” He glanced up at the cloudless evening sky. “I wish all the tents were done and we had twice as much food. The winter comes in the blink of an eye this far north. My old groom could predict the weather. He told me that the air had a tartness to it before a snowstorm, but I could never smell it.” He was talking to himself more than Aralorn. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and headed toward the center of activity.
    Aralorn watched as he stopped and laid a hand on the shoulder of an older woman plying a needle. Whatever he said made her smile.
    He looked as if he’d seen ten years more than she knew he had, and she wondered if he would live to see the year out. He’d probably wondered about that, too.
    Since Wolf had asked her to stay out of the library, Aralorn did her best to keep busy. It wasn’t difficult. Without Pussywillow or Wolf, only she and Myr had the training to teach the motley band of rebels how to fight.
    Haris was easily the best student. The muscles he’d developed swinging a smith’s hammer lent an impressive strength to his blows. Like most big men he was a little slow, but he knew how to compensate for it. In unarmed combat, he could take Aralorn but not Myr.
    The rest of the camp varied from bad to pathetic. There was a squire’s son who had at one time been quite an archer, but he was old, and his eyesight wasn’t what it had been. One of the farmers could swing a scythe but not a sword. Then there was the big carpenter whose greatest asset as a fighter was his size, which he more than made up for by his gentleness.
    “Okay now.” With an effort, Aralorn kept her voice from getting snappy. “Keep your sword a bit lower and watch my eyes to see where I’ll move. Now, in slow motion, I’m going to swing at you. I want you to block overhanded, then underhanded, then thrust.”
    The carpenter would have been a lot better off if he could have forgotten she was a woman. The only way that she could get him to strike at her was if she did it in slow motion. But when they sped things up, he wouldn’t use his full strength. She was about to change that if she could.
    “Good,” she said when he had completed the maneuvers. “Now at full speed.”
    He blocked just fine, but his strike was slow and careful, lacking the power that he should have been able to put behind the blow.
    Aralorn stepped into it and inside. With a deft grip and twist she tossed him over her head and into the grass. Before he had a chance to move, she had her knee on his chest and his sword arm twisted so that it would hurt him; maybe enough that he would fight her when she let him up.
    There had been a collective gasp from her audience when she tossed the big man on his back. The move looked more impressive than it was, especially since he easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds.
    Stanis, who was watching with his faithful shadow and a couple of other children, said, “I wouldn’t pin ’em that way, Aralorn. Two coughs from a cat, and I’d be out of it if it’d been me you caught.”
    Aralorn raised an eyebrow and let her victim up. Stanis, she’d learned, had been born to a group of Traders, traveling clans no better than they should be. It was very possible that he had a few good tricks up his sleeve.
    “Right, then. Come on, Stanis,” she invited.
    He did. She must have pinned him a dozen times, but he kept slipping out of her grasp. Drawn by the noise, Myr quit his bout to come and watch, too. Soon the whole crowd was cheering for Stanis as he broke away again and again. Aralorn quit finally and raised her hands in surrender.
    “You’re using magic to do that,” she said quietly as she shook his hand. No one but Stanis could hear her—she wouldn’t give away his tricks without permission. “I’ve never seen anyone do that.”
    Stanis shook his head, gave her a wary look, then grinned and nodded. “Most of ’em are easier with magic, but there’s a few tricks that the Clansmen know if ya wanna learn ’em.”
    So Stanis took a turn at teaching. He must have been a very good thief, and doubtless there were a few magistrates who were looking for him. They’d